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This is a segment of a longer read here...
Great conjunctions and the star/comet of Bethlehem
The Comet of Bethlehem?
The biblical story (in the Gospel of St Matthew) has a star appearing in the east and leading the Magi westwards to Bethlehem.
It happens that ancient Chinese records have a comet appearing early in March in 5 BCE in Capricornus, which was then in the east. The comet was visible for at least 70 days (consistent with the timescale for the travel of the Magi) and it moved from the east to the south, again consistent with the biblical story.
While this is only mentioned briefly here, the identification of the Star of Bethlehem with this comet has been widely written about, analysed, and criticised. This formed the substance of a chapter of a book I wrote two decades ago about the history and astronomy of the calendar, but there have been many other discussions of the facts and their interpretations published elsewhere.
Does 5 BCE fit?
Just to finish off this short discussion of the birth of Jesus, I might anticipate that some readers might imagine that a comet appearing in 5 BCE cannot fit. That is a false impression.
It is well-known to chronologists that the dating of our era (AD/BC, or CE/BCE) is ‘wrong’ in that Jesus was born some years earlier than the zero mark in that dating scale (about which, more below). This error is apparently due to the Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little!), who was charged by the Pope in the early sixth century with deriving a set of tables for future dates of Easter, having made a simple error: he interpreted a record of Jesus having been born in a certain year of the reign of Augustus Caesar as counting from when that first emperor assumed that name (in 27 BCE) rather than from when that person actually took control of the Roman Empire (in 31 BCE), at which time he was still known as Octavian. Thus a four-year slip-up occurred.
A date for the birth of Jesus shortly before the middle of April in 5 BCE is consistent with the biblical and other records, such as the reign or Herod, and the date of Passover.
Great conjunctions and the star/comet of Bethlehem
The Comet of Bethlehem?
The biblical story (in the Gospel of St Matthew) has a star appearing in the east and leading the Magi westwards to Bethlehem.
It happens that ancient Chinese records have a comet appearing early in March in 5 BCE in Capricornus, which was then in the east. The comet was visible for at least 70 days (consistent with the timescale for the travel of the Magi) and it moved from the east to the south, again consistent with the biblical story.
While this is only mentioned briefly here, the identification of the Star of Bethlehem with this comet has been widely written about, analysed, and criticised. This formed the substance of a chapter of a book I wrote two decades ago about the history and astronomy of the calendar, but there have been many other discussions of the facts and their interpretations published elsewhere.
Does 5 BCE fit?
Just to finish off this short discussion of the birth of Jesus, I might anticipate that some readers might imagine that a comet appearing in 5 BCE cannot fit. That is a false impression.
It is well-known to chronologists that the dating of our era (AD/BC, or CE/BCE) is ‘wrong’ in that Jesus was born some years earlier than the zero mark in that dating scale (about which, more below). This error is apparently due to the Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little!), who was charged by the Pope in the early sixth century with deriving a set of tables for future dates of Easter, having made a simple error: he interpreted a record of Jesus having been born in a certain year of the reign of Augustus Caesar as counting from when that first emperor assumed that name (in 27 BCE) rather than from when that person actually took control of the Roman Empire (in 31 BCE), at which time he was still known as Octavian. Thus a four-year slip-up occurred.
A date for the birth of Jesus shortly before the middle of April in 5 BCE is consistent with the biblical and other records, such as the reign or Herod, and the date of Passover.